


Quarter After One

by rose_indigo_and_tom



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22784434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_indigo_and_tom/pseuds/rose_indigo_and_tom
Summary: Dylan only brings it up one time. It goes like this:“Do you ever wonder if you already met your soulmate and you just fucked it up, or didn’t shoot your shot, or whatever, and now you’ve missed out on your chance for true love for the rest of your life?”“Uh. No?” Ryan says.
Relationships: Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome
Comments: 6
Kudos: 135





	Quarter After One

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Need You Now by Lady Antebellum.
> 
> Dedicated to my college friend. God forbid she'd ever find this lmao.

Dylan only brings it up one time. It goes like this: 

“Do you ever wonder if you already met your soulmate and you just fucked it up, or didn’t shoot your shot, or whatever, and now you’ve missed out on your chance for true love for the rest of your life?”

“Uh. No?” Ryan says.

“Well I do, all the time. What if Connor was my one true love forever and ever, and then we got drafted and that’s it for us forever?”

“Dude, you’re thinking way too hard about this. You’re being so dramatic right now.”

“Shut up, bitch, this is my one true love we’re talking about here!”

“Okay man, whatever you say.”

And then he drops it, takes another shot, shoves it out of his brain. 

———

But just because he doesn’t bring it up all the time doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it. He’s thinking about it a lot. Every time he starts a text conversation with Connor, or decides not to because what if Connor is too busy. Thinks about it when he’s traded to Chicago. When he starts getting legitimate NHL minutes. When Kitty gets engaged, when his friends start to pair off. When he scores a goal. When he’s jerking off. When he’s watching reruns of Letterkenny. When he’s eating cereal. Whatever.

It’s chill. It’s not like he’s not getting his dick wet, keeping busy, keeping up with his friends. Playing in the N-H-Fucking-L. It’s not an issue. 

He half-types and deletes so many messages to Connor, saying what he really thinks. Never sends them, _obviously_ , because it’s never going to fucking happen. Connor is out there, lighting up the league every night, with his own team and the fucking C and all his own issues. His own girlfriend, occasionally. 

Dylan has girlfriends too, sometimes, but it’s weird. It’s hard to date a girl when you spend all your post-coital moments thinking about how she’s too little and too smooth and lithe. Too much not-Connor. Eventually he gives up on the girlfriends, spends his evenings jerking off and trying so hard not to think about blonde hair and a silly laugh. 

He listens to a lot of sad country music, and texts Connor a lot and accumulates a fair number of points. It’s never enough. 

Here’s the thing: It’s one thing to talk to someone about your most intimate mental health issues, your innermost thoughts and dreams. It’s another thing entirely to tell them you’re so gone on on them you don’t even look at anyone else anymore. No matter how much they talk, they’ll never be on even footing, because Dylan always is gonna have this big secret that they don’t acknowledge or even both know about. 

He thinks about saying something about it sometimes, in his weaker moments. Has obviously mentioned it to his brother, even obliquely to a friend or two. Decides not to, because there’s definitely no way Connor feels the same way, and he doesn’t want to fuck up a good thing if he doesn’t have to. Stops picking up instead, because at least this way he doesn’t have to feel guilty about where his mind wanders.

The team starts noticing that he’s not bringing back girls, eventually. They poke at him, ask if there’s a girl back in Erie, a girl back in Arizona, a girl back in Tucson. He’s not sure what Alex says to them, but they just stop bothering him about it eventually. Maybe it’s just the fact that he’s quiet and drinks too much and doesn’t really react when they try to get to him. Who knows. He hasn’t really said anything to Alex, but it must be obvious, to someone that’s that close to the whole situation.

He wonders, sometimes, how long this can possibly go on for. How long can you carry a torch for someone before distance and time puts it out? Was it ever really love, or was he just a horny teenager with a good friend? What would he even do if something happened between them?

The answers turn out to be: a lot longer than he thought, probably the first one, and. And. And. 

———

He keeps expecting the feelings to fade, the constant need to be near Connor or at least texting Connor to go away as they get further and further from draft day, and then each year again as they get further from sleepy-warm summer days together. He keeps holding a special place for Connor in his heart, a place that seems pure and good, untouched by his desire to get a blowjob. Most of the time that doesn’t even factor into it. Sure, he thinks about sex with Connor, but mostly he thinks about being the most important person in Connor’s life for the rest of their lives, how good it would feel to never be usurped. How much he worries he already has been, by Draisaitl or Nurse or whoever else. 

It doesn’t. They don’t.

It’s weird. It’s like this whole drama, unfolding only inside Dylan’s head. There’s no dramatic conversations or romantic gestures. It’s all normal friend shit, talking about their teams, talking about their families, talking about video games. All the big emotional shit is totally one sided, just Dylan arguing with himself, consoling himself, questioning himself, fantasizing in his own head. 

———

A secret: It’s like one of those cheesy music videos, or romantic comedies, where the two characters are shown as if on opposite sides of a wall, going through the exact same thing, totally unaware of one another..

———

It goes on for literal years. Literal years of Dylan pining and doubting everything and having huge amounts of teenage angst that he thought he left behind on his twentieth birthday. Turns out you’re never too old for secret love. 

And. And. And one day then it doesn’t go on any more. It’s summer, a heat wave hanging over Toronto like a heavy blanket. The two of them stretched out on the balcony of Connor’s stupid condo, late late at night. He has AC, because he’s a fucking millionaire, but something about sweating on the balcony feels like childhood. Looking at the night sky gives it gravity, somehow.

Connor is saying something about some movie he saw last week. Dylan is staring at his lips and his hands and also thinking that maybe they’ll still be like this in thirty years, except that Connor will be married with a million little blonde kids, and Dylan will be the weird uncle who calls too often. 

And then suddenly it’s like his brain departs his body. One second he’s thinking “I bet Connor’s future kids would be really picky eaters.” The next second he’s thinking, “I could just fucking kiss him. No one could fucking stop me.” And then the next second he’s actually doing it.

What.

That was not the plan. That was never the plan! _Where the hell did that come from_ , he thinks. He’s slow to pull back, slow on the uptake of what is all happening. But he does pull back, obviously, because he hadn’t even really meant for there to be a kiss. He’s had that thought a hundred times over the years. A thousand times. And he’s never acted on it before, because it’s a fucking stupid thing to do. 

He’s so busy worrying himself that he’s not even paying attention to the moment. The moment in which Connor is making a soft little noise and leaning back in. The moment in which he is _not kissing back, Dylan what is your problem_.

He comes back to himself. Kisses back. Reaches up to tangle a hand in Connor’s hair. Makes his own small soft noise. 

They’re kissing. It’s a good kiss. Eventually they’re fucking, and that’s good too. It’s a little frantic and a little like making love. It’s late. It’s so fucking late, and maybe they’d been drinking before. It’s still good sex. Sex that feels like it says way more than they ever could with words, and also says nothing at all, leaves everything about Connor and what they’re doing a mystery.

———

They talk about it, after. Inside, in Connor’s bed, AC making the room colder than it needs to be. 

“I used to think that this was it for me, that you were the only person who was ever gonna make me feel this way. And then I thought I was being stupid and naive. And then I pined. A lot.” Connor says.

Dylan feels a little like the world is shaking under his feet, and also a little like he’s watching from outside his body, and also a little like he knew this was exactly what was going to happen all along. He presses himself closer to Connor, says “I asked Ryan once if he thought I fucked up my only chance at love. He laughed at me.” 

They talk about it. They don’t talk about how it’s going to work, or who they’re going to tell, or anything remotely logistical. But as they drift off to sleep, they talk about years of missing each other, years of feeling like no amount of texting was ever enough. Years of believing this moment was impossible. It’s the kind of conversation that could only happen in the middle of the night, the kind of vulnerability even best friends don’t tend towards in the light of day. 

It’s also, like, exactly what Dylan’s been craving all this time. All this time he thought the story of his life was playing out only inside his head, he has confirmation he’s not alone, he’s never been alone.


End file.
